Nemeton
The Nemeton is a significant location in Beacon Hills that has had a major role in Season 3 and Season 5 of Teen Wolf. It was originally an ancient tree in a grove in the Beacon Hills Nature Preserve that was chosen to be the consecrated sacred meeting place for the Druids who lived in the town. They built a root cellar in the ground below the tree and painted a five-fold knot at the base of the roots to indicate that it symbolized the world tree. It was believed that any harm that came to the Nemeton would cause the surrounding towns and villages to suffer from plagues, strife, and other kinds of natural disasters. The Nemeton contains powerful magic that is only vaguely understood, and it gains its power from ritual sacrifices that occur at the tree or on the telluric currents that run through it. The wood of the Nemeton has been used to create powerful objects, such as the Triskelion Urn that contained Talia Hale's claws. At some point, the tree was cut down by an unknown person, but the stump still retained a small spark of power, which increased in strength when a virgin sacrifice was inadvertently performed at the roots in the early 2000s. It has since been reawakened by the surrogate sacrifice ritual performed by Scott McCall, Allison Argent, and Stiles Stilinski in 2011. In 2012, it became the place where the vessel of the Hellhound, Jordan Parrish, brought the bodies of the dead Chimeras in order to protect the secret of the supernatural. In 2013, it was revealed that there are seven Nemetons around the world, with the Beacon Hills Nemeton acting as the sacred Druid meeting place in North America. The locations of four of the Nemetons were revealed to be in Toulouse (France), Brasilia (Brazil), Danzao (China), and Łagów (Russia). The remaining Nemetons on the map found in Gerard Argent's armory appear to be in Greenland and somewhere in the region of Egypt or Sudan. Gerard Argent, Tamora Monroe, and their Hunter army intended to travel to each of the Nemetons as part of their goal to commit the genocide of all supernatural creatures, believing that since their targets are unconsciously drawn to Nemetons, they could attack at the centers of the various supernatural communities and more easily achieve their goal. History buried the Nogitsune fly within its roots.]] According to Chris Argent, a Nemeton is a sacred space used by Druids for various rituals. In the flashbacks in Visionary that took place in the early 2000s, he explained to his father, Gerard Argent, that Druids picked a large, older tree in a grove to represent the center of the world. Many believed that cutting or harming the "world tree" would bring severe problems like fires, plagues, strife, and “death and destruction of all kinds” to surrounding villages. In 1943, a Kitsune named Noshiko Yukimura fled the riot and massacre at Oak Creek Internment Camp after having defeated the Nogitsune and forced it to return to its fly form. She put the fly in a jar and buried it within the roots of the full-grown Nemeton, imprisoning it for nearly seventy years. ( ) At some point between 1943 and the early 2000s, the tree was cut down by an unknown person, diminishing its power considerably, though it did retain a tiny spark of power, which the Darach and former Emissary Jennifer Blake once described as "a glowing ember in a dying fire." ( ) Either before or shortly after this happened, the Druid Emissary to the Hale Pack, Alan Deaton, harvested some of the wood to create a box to contain powerful objects and carved a triskelion, the symbol of the pack, into the lid. ( ) In the early 2000s, then fifteen-year-old Derek Hale was forced to mercy-kill his girlfriend Paige Krasikeva after she rejected the Bite given to her by an Alpha Werewolf named Ennis. However, he had taken her to the root cellar under the Nemeton, not knowing its true purpose, and when he killed her there, he unknowingly performed a virgin sacrifice that gave the Nemeton another spark of power. ( ) Some months later, the Alpha Deucalion killed all of his own Betas to subsume their power and become a corrupted form of an Alpha known as the Demon Wolf. He then decided to start the Alpha Pack, a pack of Alphas who had also killed their own Betas to absorb their power, and recruited fellow Alphas Kali and Ennis to join him. Kali did as she was told and killed her Betas before brutally mauling her Druid Emissary, Jennifer Blake. However, she loved Jennifer enough that instead of giving the killing blow, she simply left Jennifer in the woods to succumb to her wounds naturally, believing that it would be a more peaceful death. Jennifer, whose face, neck, and chest had been mutilated beyond recognition, crawled toward the stump of the Nemeton and used the spark of power gained from Paige's sacrifice to hang onto life just long enough to be found by Sheriff Stilinski and his deputies, who took her to the hospital. ( ) From then on, Jennifer decided to get her revenge on Kali and the Alpha Pack by performing a ritual based on a five-fold knot design (by sacrificing trios of virgins, warriors, healers, philosophers, and guardians in order to gain powers associated with each group) and by manipulating the telluric currents in Beacon Hills to eventually re-power the Nemeton, giving her the power to take down the Alphas once and for all. ( ) After Jennifer took Noah Stilinski, Melissa McCall, and Chris Argent to act as her final guardian sacrifices, their children Stiles Stilinski, Scott McCall, and Allison Argent became desperate to find them and sought out Alan Deaton for help. Deaton explained that he knew of a ritual that could help them, but that it was dangerous, in part because doing so would give power back to the Nemeton, returning it to its status as a beacon that would draw supernatural creatures to it like a magnet. Despite the risks, they went through with the ritual anyway, which involved the three performing a surrogate sacrifice for their parents by drowning themselves in ice baths, which returned the Nemeton to as close to its full power as it could get in its mutilated condition. During the time that the three were dead, they all received flashbacks to the first time they had run into the Nemeton in the woods without even realizing it, giving them the knowledge they needed to find it and save their parents, who were being kept in the root cellar there. ( ), ( ) Several weeks later, someone (presumably Noshiko Yukimura) pulled out a newly-appeared twig growing from the Nemeton's stump, which caused fireflies to be released from the crack in the stump and form several Oni demons. ( ) When it was revealed that Noshiko was connected to the Oni, Scott McCall and Kira Yukimura went to her for answers, and Noshiko explained that that the ritual performed by Scott, Stiles, and Allison to find the Nemeton also released the Nogitsune she had imprisoned there. ( ) The Nemeton became significant again in Season 5, when Jordan Parrish admitted to Lydia Martin that he had been having dreams about an ancient tree stump in the nature preserve, where he would bring dead bodies and lay them on the stump before setting them ablaze with his yet-undefined pyrokinetic abilities. After hearing his story, Lydia realized that the Nemeton drew Parrish to Beacon Hills as a result of his yet-unknown supernatural identity. At the end of the episode, he stole the body of one of the Chimeras, Lucas, and brought him to the Nemeton in a trance-like state. ( ) Parrish then spent the rest of the first half of Season 5 bringing the dead bodies of nearly a dozen Chimeras to the Nemeton, including Tracy Stewart, Josh Diaz, the redheaded Chimera found dead at the McCall House, Beth, Corey, and Hayden Romero. Finally, during the supermoon, Theo Raeken brought a large syringe of the green serum concocted by the Dread Doctors to the Nemeton, where he used the serum to resurrect Tracy, Hayden, Corey, and Josh. Afterward, he declared them his new pack, and self-proclaimed himself to be their new Alpha. ( ) After it was revealed that Parrish was acting as the current vessel for the power of the Hellhound, a guardian of supernatural places such as the Nemeton, Lydia, Chris Argent and Gerard Argent cooled his body to dangerously low levels so they could communicate with the Hellhound itself. It explained that it was reborn into Parrish's body the moment that Scott, Allison, and Stiles temporarily died during the surrogate sacrifice ritual, and it was implied that it was the Nemeton's newly-gained spark of power that drew the now-possessed Parrish to Beacon Hills. ( ) Characteristics The Nemeton remains a mystical presence in the Teen Wolf universe. According to Gabriel Valack, it is a supernatural force that the members of the McCall Pack barely understand. However, what is known is that it is a sacred meeting place for Druids to gather and perform their rituals. It also has supernatural power of its own, though the full range of what it can do remains a mystery. It acts as a beacon that draws supernatural creatures toward it, and at the height of its power, it acted as a prison for the Nogitsune. It also appears to act as a portal of some kind, as the Oni were summoned from within it using their firefly forms. It also is likely connected to the telluric currents, as Jennifer Blake was manipulating the currents to augment her Darach powers in her fight against the Alpha Pack, and the Nemeton appears to be located at the site of the most powerful convergence of telluric currents in Beacon Hills, suggesting that it may feed the Nemeton's power. Presumably, the other six Nemetons in the world exist on similarly powerful telluric current convergences. The Nemeton gets the majority of its power from human sacrifices, which can take many different forms. The first known sacrifice to the Nemeton was Derek Hale's accidental virgin sacrifice when he mercy-killed Paige Krasikeva at the roots of the Nemeton. Jennifer Blake subsequently sacrificed twelve people to the Nemeton in four groups of three: virgins (Heather, a lifeguard, and Emily), warriors (Kyle, the high school band teacher, and Adrian Harris), healers (Dr. Hilyard and two other physicians from Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital), and philosophers (Tara Graeme, Mr. Westover, and the recital pianist). Finally, Scott McCall, Allison Argent, and Stiles Stilinski committed suicide by drowning in an ice bath so they would act as surrogate sacrifices so their parents wouldn't be killed in their place; it was this trio of guardian sacrifices that fully charged the Nemeton to the point it is at today. It has been implied that whoever cut the Nemeton down is what caused all of the strife and supernatural chaos that has occurred in Beacon Hills over the years. It was also suggested in The Last Chimera that the Nemeton has to want to be found, which is why the members of the McCall Pack have constantly struggled to locate it in the vast nature preserve even after having remembered been there in the past; this seems to indicate that the Nemeton possesses the power to cloak itself, which would also imply that the Nemeton has some kind of consciousness. However, those with supernaturally-enhanced sight can still locate it with their glowing eyes, as shown when Liam Dunbar helped Mason Hewitt find the Nemeton by using his golden Werewolf eyes. Trivia *Though the Nemeton did not make its first appearance until Visionary, it was revealed in Lunar Ellipse that Scott McCall, Stiles Stilinski, and Allison Argent had all actually seen it for the first time in the events of the series premiere, Wolf Moon. Gallery Tumblr ny9zjf5qhX1r7yp62o1 1280.jpg The white room the nemeton.gif Dreams stiles nemeton le.png Terrakinesis nemeton.png Terrakinesis nemeton root cellar.png Nemeton galvanize.png Nemeton oni manifestation.jpg The white room nemeton nogistiles.png Pyrokinesis parrish nemeton condition terminal.jpg Hellhound parrish nemeton fire.gif Category:Locations Category:Beacon Hills Locations Category:Druids Category:Areas of interest